SRINAGAR: The Centre on Friday officially disclosed, for the first time, the names of six Indian Armed Forces personnel who were killed during Operation Sindoor, the cross-border military operation launched in May 2025 against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK. The names have been published on the official website of the National War Memorial and inscribed at the National War Memorial in New Delhi, more than a year after the operation was carried out.
The six personnel are Subedar Major Pawan Kumar of Headquarters 10 Infantry Brigade, Rifleman Sunil Kumar of 4 Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar of 5 Field Regiment, Aviation Technician Mood Muralinaik of 851 Light Regiment, Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh of 237 Field Workshop Company, and Sergeant Surendra Kumar of 39 Wing of the Indian Air Force.
Rifleman Sunil Kumar was posthumously awarded the Vir Chakra, India’s third-highest wartime gallantry award, while Sergeant Surendra Kumar received the Vayu Medal. Until now, the government had acknowledged that personnel had been killed during Operation Sindoor but had not officially released their identities. Operation Sindoor was launched in the early hours of May 7, 2025, in response to the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 civilians, most of them tourists, were killed. The operation targeted terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control in Pakistan and PoK.
The names of the six personnel have now been added to the National War Memorial, which commemorates members of the Indian Armed Forces who have lost their lives in military operations since Independence. The National War Memorial, inaugurated in 2019 near India Gate, includes the Tyag Chakra, comprising concentric granite walls engraved with the names, ranks and units of personnel who have died in the line of duty.
The inclusion of the six names marks the first official public identification of the personnel who were killed during Operation Sindoor. While the government has not released details of the circumstances in which each of the six personnel was killed, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar died during Pakistani shelling along the Line of Control in Poonch district on May 7, 2025. Open-source reports indicate that Sergeant Surendra Kumar was killed during a Pakistani aerial attack on a military installation near Udhampur. The locations and circumstances of the deaths of the remaining four personnel have not been officially disclosed.
